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  “It’s a precaution,” Sufur said. “Only a few people know exactly where the lab is.”

  He was sitting as far away from me as he could. I was really starting to wonder about it. He didn’t act that away around Chipk. And how come he doesn’t look human in the Dream? Sufur’s a real weirdo, and I was wondering if I should take my first year’s salary and run like hell when I got the chance.

  We didn’t talk on the trip. After a while, the car stopped. A second later, there was a thump against the door I was sitting by.

  “You can get out,” Sufur said.

  That was a relief. I opened the door and found a tunnel. It was made out of flexible white plastic or a polymer. Ribs held it open. The tunnel’s end narrowed enough to fit right up against the car, and I couldn’t see outside. The air smelled like damp rubber.

  “Go on,” Sufur said.

  I got out and had to duck until I got to where the tunnel widened. Then the tunnel suddenly clamped shut behind me. I heard the door slam and the car buzzed away. I was suddenly scared.

  Told you, my Jesse voice said smugly.

  “It’s all right,” said someone behind me. I spun around. It was a little blond guy with a big mustache. He was playing with one end of it, twirling it tighter and tighter. Behind him the tunnel bent downward

  “So you’re Sejal Dasa.” The blond guy extended the hand that wasn’t twirling the mustache and I shook it automatically. He wasn’t Silent, but he looked excited. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. I’m Max Garinn. Mr. Sufur told me to take you down to the base, but right now I have to hurry and get this tunnel contracted before the guard notices it.”

  I felt a little better, but my Jesse voice wouldn’t let up. I stayed wary as Garinn lead me downward. The tunnel walls bowed inward between the ribs and I touched them. They were cool and bulgy, like a balloon filled with water. I asked Garinn what that was about.

  “We’re heading under the ocean,” Garinn said. “The submersile is just ahead.”

  The tunnel leveled out and ended in a round hatchway. We stepped through onto a metal floor in an airlock. Garinn cycled the door shut and pushed a button to retract the tunnel, then took me to another room with a couple chairs in it and a porthole. He gestured at me to sit down, and I sat.

  “Wonderful,” he said, still twirling that damned mustache. “We’ll be on our way soon, but I need to get a blood sample from you.”

  My Jesse voice dinged the alarm bells. “What for?”

  “DNA indentification.” He had already taken an injection gun from his pocket. “We need it so the lab’s computers will know who you are.”

  Jesse was yammering at me, but I couldn’t think of any reason to refuse, so I let him take the sample. He almost sprinted away with it. A minute later, motors hummed and we were moving. I watched the ocean skim past the portal. It was really interesting—beds of red plants and weird fish I’d never seen before. We moved at a pretty good clip, always staying close to the bottom. I started feeling restless. Unless Sufur had lied, I was going to see Mom and meet my dad and my sister. I wondered what they’d be like.

  Eventually, we got close to what looked like a big mound of rock or coral. The tunnel extended toward it like a big white worm and attached itself to something on the rock. I was confused until I figured out the rock pile was hiding the base.

  Garinn lead me up the tunnel, though an airlock, and into a carpeted corridor. The walls were rounded and painted bright, cheerful colors. Garinn walked beside me, one hand playing with his mustache, the other in the pocket with the injection gun.

  “You probably want to see your family,” he said. “I’ll take you to them.”

  I started getting nervous again. Garinn lead me through a whole bunch of corridors. We passed lots of doors and other hallways, but didn’t meet anyone else. I got completely lost. Finally Garinn stopped by one of the doors and pressed the chime. My mouth was dry as sandpaper. What did my dad look like? Was Mom really okay?

  The door flew open and Mom was standing there. She cried my name and hugged me. I was so glad to see her, to know she was safe. I had completely forgotten that we had had a big fight the last time we were together. A little tear leaked out of my eye, and I hoped no one would see it.

  Behind her, over Mom’s shoulder, I saw a man and a girl. Both of them had black hair, though the man’s—Dad’s?—was going silver. I stared at them, uncertain what to do. Mom was still hugging me. The man smiled a little shyly and the girl didn’t react at all. She looked familiar.

  Finally Mom let me go. She looked at Garinn, who was still standing there. “You can go now,” she said. Then she pulled me inside and slammed the door in his face.

  “There are people you need to meet, Sejal,” she said. “This is your father Prasad Vajhur.”

  I looked at him. The moment was here, the one I had thought about for a long time. I was meeting my dad. When I was little, I used to fantasize that he would pick me up and swing me through the air or wrestle with me on the floor, and that was the first thing that came into my head.

  “Hi,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Sejal.” Prasad—my dad—said it like he had never said my name before. He started to stick out his hand, then pulled it back with a confused look on his face. I was wondering what to do too. Hug him? I didn’t even know him. Shake his hand? Seemed a dumb thing to do with your own father.

  Mom took over and saved us both. She took me by the shoulders and turned me toward the girl. She looked about a year older than me. “And this is your sister, Katsu,” Mom said.

  “Hello,” Katsu said. Her voice was low, like Mom’s.

  “Hi,” I said again.

  “Let’s go and sit down,” Mom put in.

  We went into the living room. It wasn’t much bigger than the one in the apartment back in Ijhan. Two windows looked into the ocean, and I saw more red kelp waving in the water. I sat next to Mom on the couch. Katsu sat on the floor and Prasad took an easy chair.

  “Sejal—” Prasad said.

  “Why did you leave?” I blurted out. I was suddenly pissed at him. I had lived my whole life on Rust in a damn slum, and only after I finally manage to leave does he show up.

  Prasad looked pained. He explained about Katsu being kidnapped and how he came to the lab. Then Mom explained how she had found Max Garinn, the virologist who had altered my genes and screwed up my Silence.

  “Max Garinn?” I said. “The guy who brought me here? He’s the guy who changed me?”

  Mom nodded. I felt creeped out. “He took a blood sample before we even got here,” I said. “He said it was so he could tell computers to recognize me.”

  Mom and Prasad looked at each other. Katsu stayed in her spot on the floor. She hadn’t spoken yet.

  “I believe we must run faster, my wife,” Prasad said.

  “I believe my husband is once again correct,” she replied.

  That was weird. I’ve never heard Mom call anyone her husband before. Before I could think about that much more, though, Mom asked what had happened to me since I had gone off with Kendi. All they knew was that someone named Dr. Say had told them I was coming.

  I started from the beginning and told them about the escape and Pitr’s death, Bellerophon and the dinosaurs, the Empress’s orders and Padric Sufur. Mom looked enraged when I told her Ara was supposed to kill me.

  “Nowhere is safe!” she cried. “Not even a monastery.”

  Prasad got her calmed down enough for me to finish. Then Prasad told me about the lab and the twisted children inside it. I didn’t know how to react to that, so I didn’t say anything.

  “So our secret benefactor is Padric Sufur,” Prasad said. “The question is, why did he send you here?”

  “Because I told him to,” I said, a little confused. “I overheard him talking to someone about you guys and I told him he had to bring me here.”

  Mom shook her head. “He would not take such great risks merely so yo
u could see your family. Even with your…abilities, Sejal, the risk is foolish. The fact that Max Garinn took a sample of your blood so eagerly tells me there is something else this Padric Sufur wants of you.”

  “He wants me to end war,” I said, a little proudly. Prasad was going to know how important I am. I went on to explain.

  “Foolishness,” Mom said when I was done.

  I stared at her. “What?”

  “Foolishness,” Mom repeated. “And I am unable to believe Sufur doesn’t know this.”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded. “It would work.”

  “Think it through, Sejal,” Prasad said gently. “At any moment there must be half a dozen wars going on between systems. You are one person. You couldn’t stop all of them from going to war, no matter how powerful you are. And the potentates you threatened would certainly send assassins. One of them would find you eventually. It would be impossible for a single person to end war in this manner.”

  I glared at both of them. “So why is he paying me all this money?”

  Mom tapped her fingers on the arm of the couch. “Any number of reasons. He may wish to ensure that no one else has control of you. Or he may want to use you for more financial gain.”

  “He wants Sejal’s genes,” Katsu said.

  Everyone looked at her. I had almost forgotten she was there. Katsu has black hair like mine, but her eyes are brown like Mom’s.

  Anyway. Prasad started to ask her what she meant, but Mom interrupted.

  “The blood sample,” she said. “Garinn wanted to get it quickly because it’s important to the experiment. I won’t give them my eggs, but Sejal’s genes may be a better substitute. He is more powerful than any Silent in history.”

  “What would he want with Sejal’s genes?” Prasad said.

  “This place is built on lies.” Katsu was staring at the carpet in front of her. “When Father first arrived, Kri and Say told him they were trying to end the slavery of women who could produce Silent babies. A lie. When Mother arrived, she said she wished to aid in the research. A lie. When Sejal met Sufur, Sufur said he wanted to use Sejal as a threat to end war. A lie. Sufur let Sejal think he was doing a great favor by letting Sejal come back to Rust. A lie. Everything here is a lie.”

  “So what is the truth, my daughter?” Mom said quietly.

  “The Dream,” Katsu replied. “There are no lies in the Dream.”

  “You said Sufur wants Sejal’s genes,” Prasad said. “Do you know why?”

  “Max Garinn wants Sejal’s genes,” Katsu corrected. “Garinn creates viruses that change people.”

  “The children,” Mom whispered, and I assumed she meant the ones Prasad had helped create in the lab.

  “Another group will enter the Dream soon,” Katsu went on. “I have felt their minds pressing on its fabric. When they enter, I don’t know if I can hold all them in one place.”

  Then she got up, walked into another room, and shut the door.

  “Is she always like that?” I asked. I felt off-balance.

  “Yes,” Prasad answered. He sounded tense.

  “I would gamble a great deal of money,” Mom said, “that Garinn intends to use Sejal’s genes and create a retrovirus that will bring the next set of children into the Dream earlier than they normally would.”

  “But why?” Prasad almost shouted. “Katsu says that would destroy the Dream. Why would they want to do that?”

  “I am uncertain,” Mom said. “We need to learn more. We need to know if Dr. Say is Silent, as my husband suspects. We need to know if Padric Sufur truly wants to destroy the Dream, and why he would want to do it.”

  She paused for a moment.

  “And,” she said, “we need to take over this base.”

  Naturally, just when things were getting really interesting, a computer chime went off and Prasad said he had to get down to the lab for the day. He squeezed my shoulder on his way out and left.

  I sat on the couch next to Mom, not certain about what to do or think. So that was my dad. He seemed nice, I guess. I supposed I was expecting to feel some kind of connection with him, but he just seemed like a distracted stranger.

  Mom gave me another hug and I let her. Then we talked some more. Neither of us said anything about the tricking or the fight we’d had. I told her more about Bellerophon and the dinosaurs and she told me more about the lab and the Nursery. Then I told her I was tired and wanted to take a nap. She showed me to her and Prasad’s room. That was weird, too, knowing that Mom was sleeping with him.

  Anyway. Mom shut the door and I lay down. I didn’t really want to sleep, of course. I wanted to enter the Dream.

  I closed my eyes and tranced myself. Voices whispered around me. I reached for them, and found myself on my seashore in the Dream. Right away, though, I could tell things were getting worse. The place felt almost empty. The dark place rumbled and roared over my ocean, and it was huge and closer. I thought of stories Mom used to tell about giants coming up out of the ocean and smashing whole cities to pieces with their clubs.

  I took a deep breath and moved myself to the border of darkness and Dream.

  It was still screaming. I looked inside, trying to ignore the noise. The figure was there, dancing, and now I saw it was Katsu. That was why she had looked familiar. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted to her, but she didn’t hear me. I kept shouting and waving my arms and eventually she turned. I couldn’t see her face very well—it was too dark—but it was definitely her. She motioned at me to come and join her. I took a step back.

  Then I saw it. A shadow separated itself from the black place. It was shaped like a twisted human. It took off over the plain, and wherever it touched the ground, the earth crumbled. A small tornado whirled up behind it, and I could feel it ripping at the Dream itself. I stared.

  Then Katsu appeared. She ran after the shadow, even got ahead of it, not even affected by the deep canyon it made or the whirlwind. She touched it and talked to it, though I was too far away to hear what she said. Abruptly it turned and rushed back to the dark place. Katsu watched it go, then ran over to me. We looked at each other for a long time.

  “I’ve been calling to you in the Dream,” she said. “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “You mean go in there?” I jerked a thumb at the darkness. “Forget it!”

  “They won’t hurt you as long as I’m with you.”

  Thunder rumbled and a cold wind rushed over us for a minute. I lengthened the sleeves on my shirt and changed my shorts into pants.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “The children in the Nursery, of course. You heard Mother speak of them.”

  Katsu wore a simple blue jumpsuit in the Dream. Her hair isn’t as curly as mine, but it’s a lot longer. We’re the same height.

  “What was it like growing up with Pra—with Dad?” I asked suddenly.

  She smiled. “I don’t know what it’s like not to. Father is gentle and he tends to believe what people tell him. He wants to see people as kind even after it’s obvious they are not. But he is not stupid.”

  “Mom’s smart, too,” I said. “She can make people do what she wants, but she wants what’s good for them—or what she thinks is good for them. You look like her.”

  “And you look like Father.”

  We grinned at each other for a moment. Then Katsu’s face got serious. Another rumble of thunder crashed over us.

  “I dance for the children,” she said. “It calms them and keeps them in one place, but once in a while, one of them runs away like you just saw. They see themselves as monsters, and that means when they touch the minds of other Silent in the Dream, those Silent see them as monsters too, monsters made of the Dreamscape itself. They are very powerful, which is how they can force their own picture of the Dream on other Silent.”

  “They’re related to us, aren’t they?” I said.

  She nodded. “They are our brothers and sisters. That’s why I dance for them, and because I dance, they ha
ven’t devoured the minds on Rust. If they did, I wouldn’t be able to enter the Dream. Neither of us would. But they’re getting hungrier and hungrier. When the next set of our siblings enters the Dream, I will not be able to hold them back.”

  I swallowed hard, feeling cold. “And if Garinn brings them in early—”

  “—the Dream will be destroyed before anyone else can do anything,” she finished. I saw that she was tired. The strain of what she was doing must be tremendous, and she had been doing it all by herself.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my flute. “Do you want some music?”

  She smiled at me, then took my hand and lead me into darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  PLANET BELLEROPHON

  BLESSED AND MOST BEAUTIFUL MONASTERY OF THE CHILDREN OF IRFAN

  Silent grief only breaks the heart.

  —Philosopher Ched-Vareed

  Ben and Harenn pulled Kendi along between them on swaying walkways. Ara hadn’t answered her phone, though it seemed to Ben that he should be more worried than he was. Harenn uncharacteristically kept up a running monologue as they went.

  “Most people think the Dream is a gestalt of all minds in the universe,” she said. “It makes us feel connected to other people. But now we are no longer part of the Dream. We feel lonely and afraid and we don’t care about other people except out of habit or when the feelings are exceptionally strong.”

  “Not now,” Ben snapped. Harenn fell silent.

  Ben continued dragging Kendi along the walkways. It would have been faster to leave him behind, but something told Ben this would be a mistake. Kendi walked like he was half-asleep and his arm was cold in Ben’s grip. The monastery had been transformed. It no longer bustled busily. People sat on balconies and stared into space. Several times he saw people hanging from branches or rails, their bodies swinging like ghosts in the fog. Four shots sizzled in the distance and a siren wailed for a long moment before dying. A Ched-Balaar lay sprawled across one of the walkways. Ben had to guide Kendi’s steps over its body. As he did so, he saw its head had been crushed.